


The Mind of Shiva (The Vishnu Overdub)

by blackbird



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-29
Updated: 2007-04-29
Packaged: 2017-10-16 03:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/168080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackbird/pseuds/blackbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Then again, he's not really a man at all.  He's something completely different. And now, after her, so am I.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mind of Shiva (The Vishnu Overdub)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Mind of Shiva](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/2613) by erinya. 



> Spoilers up to the end of Series 2. Thanks to [](http://daera23.livejournal.com/profile)[**daera23**](http://daera23.livejournal.com/) and [](http://sorcha-feanor.livejournal.com/profile)[**sorcha_feanor**](http://sorcha-feanor.livejournal.com/) for their super fast beta. Disclaimer - They belong to the BBC and RTD, I'm just borrowing them.

Our psychic link is a both a blessing and a curse. I can feel and see more than the Doctor realizes. In the rare moments when he sleeps, he dreams about being spread thin between the stars across countless galaxies, like a fine, silvery web and nothing like a man at all. He imagines he is everywhere and nowhere, all of time and the smallest fraction of a second, never wearing the same face and none of them his own.

Then again, he's not really a man at all. He's something completely different.

And now, after her, so am I.

*

We are back on Earth. Again.

It's a bit obscene, this affair he's having with this planet. Well, he must be in love with it, or something like love, because he returns here again and again, and he never gets tired of it. He's woven himself into its history almost seamlessly and because it soothes him, I can't resent him for it. In this way he is like so many other aliens, craving what only this planet seems to be able to give him.

And like a damsel calling for a knight, this planet needs him. It is always on the edge of disaster and he's always there, just in the nick of time. Because this is a planet he can save, again and again.

Even when he can't, when the Sun swallows it at last, it will still be somewhere. Hidden in tiny pockets of time and space, this planet will live on as Gallifrey could not. It will change and adapt to new species and technology and spread its children out across the universe.

Gallifrey was not so fortunate. No matter how far we traveled, we could not find it. It's as if it never existed, time and space wiped clean of all traces of it.

The reason he truly loves Earth is precisely because it doesn't remind him of Gallifrey. It couldn't be more different, teaming with life that wildly races headlong into disaster. They are fearless but flawed and humans pack so much more into their tiny lifespan than he could have ever imagined. Nothing like his world, where the luxury of having time at their fingertips made his people complacent and slow to act until the battle was on their doorstep.

Not him though. He was the only one who ever tried to resist the easy comforts of being a Time Lord. He always wanted more, to be part of everything that was out there and get his hands dirty.

And dirty they got, stained with the blood of his entire race. And now he's the only one left. The last prodigal son, roaming the universe in a ship permanently disguised as a blue police box.

*

'It's bigger on the inside.'

He never gets tired of that joke. Although bigger doesn't quite cover it. With all the modifications he's made over the years, vast is a more appropriate description. Up the spiral staircase there are several libraries, a small indoor garden, and the wardrobe room. Go down the first hallway and you can find the kitchen, two medical bays, a fully stocked chemical laboratory, and the ever popular pool.  
But it's down the second hallway that the Doctor finds himself pacing most nights. He's worn quite a track in the carpeting as a matter of fact.

The rooms are preserved at my will, and some nights he'll open the doors as he is wandering the dim corridors. He'll step into Ace's room and with a slight shift in the air currents, a bitter chemical smell will fill his nostrils. Another will reveal Jamie, a tartan blanket still folded at the end of the unmade bed. Last is Sarah Jane's room, drawers still hanging half open from her hasty departure and a brush lying on the sideboard, a strand of hair still tangled in the bristles. I can't help but wonder if he believes this is some sort of penance. As if torturing himself will bring them back.

Doors slam hard as he leaves each room, but I forgive him for it. It would be easier for him if I was to seal these rooms off, but I won't. Because I have seen the whole of time and all of these things that have happened before may happen again. Resurrection is part of the world we came from, even if that world is no more.

Sometime, he stands in the doorway of an empty room. These stand empty for a reason - to force him to fill them up. As much as he pretends, he doesn't really like being alone. And I would rather he wasn't on his own all the time. Another set of eyes and ears to look after him is something I have come to depend on after all these years.

*

One night, I open a door and he finds himself standing on the threshold of a perfect replica of a Revolution-era French bedchamber, complete with fireplace. The only thing missing was the girl.

He steps inside and takes a deep breath. Between the syncopated beats of his hearts, I could feel every skipped beat of yearning for her. His grief was still so bright and sharp that it almost surprised me.

He imprinted himself on her, appearing in the footnotes and margins just often enough for her to accept the strangeness of him. It would have been simpler to leave it there, but my Doctor never takes the easy road.

The clock on the mantle reads the same time and as he runs his fingertips over it, I know he's going back to her early life. The memories of her as a girl, as a young woman, and he savors her as slowly as he can. They are dancing and he is momentarily filled with joy. I miss that, his happiness. But that's where he stops.

He never goes back to the days after they said goodbye for the first time, for the last time. He cannot bear to watch her fade. Its one thing he does not have to see the end of.

When he leaves, he closes the door and leans heavily against it. He's tired, I can feel it. But I try to push him anyway.

Two facing doors at the end of the hall swing open. The faintest strains of Glenn Miller float out of one and pale golden light spills out of the other. His heartbeats speed up and when he takes a step toward them, I make the light a little brighter and the music a little louder.

"Stop that, you," he says out loud and turns away.

*

I knew she was going to change everything.

Rose was entirely of Earth. She changed in all the ways he stayed the same and held on to herself through all his changes. It hurt him to look at her sometimes; she was so brilliant with life. And he needed that after Gallifrey, someone who could be the light to his dark.

And she needed him. He wouldn't have brought her along if she didn't. It's what sustains him, feeding off that need to save things. In his own way, he's as bad as all the other scavengers that come to Earth.

He held tight to her because he knew one day he'd have to let her go too. She would become another room that he'd walk out of drained and bruised from old memories.

But then we were back on Satellite Five and the old enemy was battering down our door. It was going to be his way out, a way back to his people and mine too, eventually. But this one, his blooming, blowsy Rose, wasn't going away so easily.

She did something no human being is meant to do and something I don't think anyone else will attempt to do again. She cracked open my core and looked into my heart, taking a good chunk of the Time Vortex with her.

When she put her hands on the console, she didn't need to set controls or pull levers. We were one being, with a single goal in mind. It was so simple, moving through the time stream and landing back on Satellite Five just in the nick of time.

A bit like someone else I know.

The doors flew open and we stepped out. For the first time, I could see and smell and breathe. I finally understood everything. And I saw my Doctor for the first time. I knew I needed to protect him, to keep him safe as long as I could. I loved him and so did she.

The mystery of Bad Wolf was explained. It was us, Rose and I, all along. But I saw something else, something she didn't. Someday, a door would close between them and they would think it could never be opened it again. I could see Bad Wolf Bay.

The enemy was of no particular worry to us. With a flick of our hand, they were silenced. The Daleks and their false god scattered in space, tiny particles twinkling in the black and reduced to dust.

I can still hear him, telling Rose to let go. But it wasn't Rose who needed to let go. It was me. I saved my Doctor, I saved Jack too. If I'd been inside the body of a Time Lord, I would have been the most powerful creature in the universe.

But causality, like time, doesn't flow in just the one direction. I knew it and Rose knew it too. She ripped a hole in herself to save him and was dying for it. And there was I, clinging desperately to that which had to end.

So I faded back, let Rose take control. I knew he would save her, even at the cost of his own life. And when he did, in that one moment, I knew what love felt like.

*

Now, she's gone.

Like Reinette, Rose saw his abyss, followed my light into it and pulled him out. Perhaps she never understood what it meant. But I think she understood it all too well, and pretended not to. Because she saw far enough to know that he needed her not to see him as a god, lonely or otherwise, but as a man. A man whose hand she could take to lead him home, even though that home could never be his. He needed her misunderstanding, to be treated like a person, even though he's not one, not really.

I think that's why he was so taken with her. He could take her hand and anchor himself to the here and now to a girl whose curiosity was almost as boundless as his own. Honestly, she was the right person at the right time. And believe me - I know how rare that truly is.

We searched and searched for a rip in time and finally we found one, not big enough to pull her through, but just large enough to say good bye. It's a shame that supernova couldn't hold out a moment longer. Then she would have known what I know.

He wants her back so badly. Maybe more that he wants Gallifrey. But even he can't afford to want forever. The first thing he ever showed her was the death of her world. And that world is calling him again. Today, this doomed, beloved world of theirs can be saved.

So, we're off again to London and an empty room will soon be filled. She won't be Rose. But he'll ask her to stay and for now, it will be enough.  



End file.
